


not too subtle

by Laylah



Category: Sarai-ya Goyou | House of Five Leaves
Genre: First Time, Flirting, Intercrural Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 11:37:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9655697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: Yaichi's lips twitch, as if he would smile and he's stopping himself. "A girl who wanted to get anywhere with you would need to be subtle." He finishes his cup of sake. "But nottoosubtle, or you'd never take the hint."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [1010nabulation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1010nabulation/gifts).



Masa slips into Yaichi's room and slides the door shut in a hurry, more forcefully than he meant to—the loud bang of the wood makes him wince. Yaichi looks up from where he's lounging on his futon, and one corner of his mouth barely quirks upward in a smile.

"The girls trying to corner you again?"

Masa nods. "They're so..." Loud, he could say. Brightly colored. They all talk at once and he can feel their eyes on him and he just freezes up, can't make himself do anything but flee. "There are so many of them."

"That'd be a problem for any man," Yaichi says dryly. "But most of them would look happier about it."

"You wouldn't," Masa says as he sits down. "You'd look bored."

"I'm a terrible example." Yaichi sits up, still a too-casual tangle of limbs but at least upright instead of sprawled careless and indolent as a cat. He sets his pipe down in the brazier and turns his cool unsettling gaze on Masa. "I'm sure if you wanted to see one of them alone, all you'd have to do is drop a hint and she'd find her way into your room."

Masa has to look away. "I wouldn't know where to begin." Living at Katsura-ya, it's impossible to avoid hearing things—and sometimes seeing things—but honestly that makes the whole prospect seem _more_ daunting, not less.

"Didn't you have a mentor, back in your hometown?" Yaichi's tone is casual but it's so rare for him to ask that sort of question that it still feels momentous.

"By the time I was the right age, it was already apparent that I was like this. I don't think I was a very appealing choice."

"Pathetic," Yaichi sighs. "It sounds like I'll have to be the one to take care of you."

Masa's head snaps up and he flushes hot with alarm. "Yaichi-dono, you don't have to—"

Yaichi leans forward and puts two fingers to Masa's lips, stopping his words, stilling every part of him except for his thundering heart. "You protect me, samurai," he murmurs, his voice gone low and smoky in a way that gives Masa shivers all over. "Won't you let me show you my appreciation?"

 _That isn't necessary_ , Masa would say if his tongue would obey him.

None of this is about what's necessary, is it?

After another long nerve-wracking moment he manages to nod.

Yaichi sits back on his heels instead of... whatever else he might have done. Instead of pouncing instantly on Masa's surrender. "Have a drink with me," he says, opening the little cabinet in the corner of his room and producing a bottle and two cups.

"Thank you," Masa says. It's such an ordinary thing for them to do together, for a moment he thinks Yaichi has changed his mind—maybe this was just a whim, just Yaichi teasing the way he does sometimes.

But as Yaichi pours sake for both of them, he says, "You don't have any problems talking to me. Would a girl be that different?"

"I don't think so," Masa says. "If it were just one. Not a crowd."

"So that's how it starts." Yaichi takes a sip, watching Masa the whole time. "You go to her room. She asks you questions about where you come from, maybe, or about what you're doing here in Edo. You make conversation while you share a drink or two."

Masa drinks. "Should I ask those questions too?"

Yaichi looks away. "The past can be an uncomfortable topic at times," he says, and that's probably true for most of the girls working here but Masa doesn't think that's why he said it.

"I won't, then," Masa says. "I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable."

"No," Yaichi says. "You're too kind for that."

It's true; Masa is too gentle for the life he's been born into. "But maybe that's not so bad in a case like this."

"Maybe not," Yaichi agrees. He takes Masa's cup to refill it and their fingers brush. It's such a little touch but it makes warmth lick over Masa's skin all the same. Would anyone else make him feel this way, so light and strange and hopeful? He doesn't think so.

"This sounds much less intimidating than it could," Masa says.

Yaichi's lips twitch, as if he would smile and he's stopping himself. "A girl who wanted to get anywhere with you would need to be subtle." He finishes his cup of sake. "But not _too_ subtle, or you'd never take the hint."

It sounds like he wants Masa to apologize there, but it's not entirely clear what for.

"So she'd be sure you were watching when she turned away." Yaichi turns as he says it, his back to Masa, his spine straight. "And as she moved..." He shrugs his shoulders and the collar of his kimono comes loose, slipping down to bare his nape as his back arches.

Masa doesn't mean to make a sound but it happens anyway, a soft and stunned noise as if he's just taken a sharp blow beneath the ribs. It's such an achingly vulnerable, _inviting_ gesture, when Yaichi is usually so guarded, he hardly dares to breathe.

"And if you were actually with a pretty girl, and she were seducing you, she'd let it fall a little further—but I'm afraid I'm nothing worth looking at that way."

"It's fine," Masa says. Maybe he should stop there but he doesn't. The words trip over themselves, urgent. "I know you have a scar. I don't care."

Yaichi's back stiffens. Masa bites his tongue, waiting for Yaichi to tell him to get out, braced for an angry, cutting dismissal. The silence stretches between them, tense, heavy. Yaichi exhales audibly.

His kimono slips from his shoulders. Masa swallows hard, taking in that expanse of bared skin, unsure if he's allowed to touch and painfully sure that he wants to. The scar is nothing like he expected—not some ragged slash but instead an elegant, five-pointed leaf. It does nothing to detract from Yaichi's beauty.

"Then what?" Masa breathes.

"Then... someone who's become that vulnerable in front of you would probably want to be reassured that you appreciated it."

"Oh." Masa shuffles forward on his knees, closing the distance between them. His hands shake when he reaches out but for once he's feeling something else strong enough to overpower the fear; he wants to be here, wants Yaichi, no matter how daunting this is. His hands settle on Yaichi's shoulders and the sky doesn't fall; his heart doesn't stop. He runs his fingers over collarbones, down to the wiry strength of biceps. He leans down and presses a kiss to the knob of bone at Yaichi's nape. He lets his lips trail over the slope of shoulder and gently, carefully kisses the top point of Yaichi's scar. "Y-you're beautiful."

Yaichi glances back at him. "Not much of a poet, are you?"

Masa ducks his head.

"Tch, don't listen to me when I say things like that," Yaichi says, turning to face him. "I don't mean them, I'm just..."

"I know," Masa says. Yaichi is just sharp, like the blade he carries everywhere: spare and elegant, but all too quick to do damage. "It's all right."

Yaichi takes Masa's face in his hands and leans in to kiss him, so gentle it's almost possible to forget those sharp edges are there. His lips are soft. His hands are careful, as if Masa is something that might break if handled too roughly. It's not true. Masa knows what kind of roughness to expect from Yaichi by now, and it won't break him.

But the sweetness is good. There's something rare and precious about it, Yaichi setting his defenses aside to share the secret that is his gentleness. His lips part and his tongue slips into Masa's mouth, teasing. He tastes bitter from smoking but that's all right; Masa associates the flavor so strongly with Yaichi's company that it makes him feel warm and comfortable.

Yaichi lets go of Masa with one hand and reaches back behind himself, pulling at the knot of his obi until it comes undone. He fumbles, trying to unwind it while they're still kissing; his tanto falls free and clatters on the floor. He laughs breathlessly, just a tiny huff against Masa's mouth. "A really good seduction attempt would go more smoothly, of course."

"This is a good one," Masa says. His heart feels light.

Yaichi discards his obi at last and his kimono pools around his thighs. He's lean and spare, shadows sitting in the hollows of his collarbones, flat belly sloping down to the arch of hipbone, and he looks at Masa like he's offering a challenge. "How would you know a good one from a bad one?"

Masa shrugs. "A good one is one that works."

"Oh?" Yaichi raises an eyebrow as if he's surprised. "Are you seduced, then?"

For once responding is easy, smooth as a practiced parry: "Completely," Masa says, and leans in to kiss him again. Yaichi kisses back, his eyes crinkling at the corners as if he's smiling into it. His hands drop to the ties of Masa's hakama, undoing the knot and reaching immediately for the strings that hold the uwagi straight. It's thrilling and strange and wonderful, to have someone—to have _Yaichi_ —so interested in undressing him that it seems urgent.

When Yaichi pulls back from kissing his lips are flushed with it. "Take those off the rest of the way."

Masa hurries to comply, stripping out of his clothes as Yaichi does likewise. He feels like he must be clumsy and inelegant, his awkwardness unappealing, but he's too preoccupied with his own clothing to watch Yaichi undress so hopefully the reverse is true. And then they're both naked, and Yaichi is beautiful as a well-forged sword, and he's looking at Masa the way nobody looks at Masa, as if he's enticing and welcome and not a disappointment.

"Yaichi-dono..."

"Ah, don't do that." Yaichi cups Masa's face in one hand. "At a time like this you really should be less formal."

"I'll try to remember," Masa says.

"Good," Yaichi says. He pulls Masa down onto the futon with him, and their bodies fit together easily, like they've always known this. Kissing him is intoxicating, all the more so with bare skin pressed smooth and heated together. Masa's getting hard, and he can feel that Yaichi is too, rocking against him liquid and insistent. This feels so fast, and yet also like it's something that's been waiting for months, while they shared drinks and conversation and did jobs. Yaichi's hand cups his face, holding him in place for kisses that grow deeper and more needy, the scrape of teeth against his lip, the press of Yaichi's tongue filling his mouth. Masa's breath comes short and his body trembles, not with anxiety for once but with anticipation. He runs his fingers up the path of Yaichi's spine, and Yaichi arches toward his touch.

He pulls back from the kiss just so he can look Yaichi in the eyes, so he can commit this moment to memory—the softness of Yaichi's expression, the closeness of sharing even breath, the warmth everywhere their bodies meet.

"Maybe you don't need poetry, if you can look at someone like that," Yaichi says, the corner of his mouth crooked upward fondly. "Like you've found some stroke of fantastically unlikely good luck."

"Should I have seen this coming?" Masa asks. His nerves spark and crackle as Yaichi rocks against him. "Were the signs there all along?"

Yaichi's breath huffs, a sigh and a laugh at once. "It's no good being too subtle." He kisses Masa again, as if he just can't help himself. "Shall we do something about," a hard grind of his hips, "this?"

"Please," Masa breathes.

Yaichi nods. "Let me up a moment." He rolls away from Masa, reaching for his little cabinet again. He retrieves a bottle, unstoppers it, and pours some oil into the palm of his hand. "Here," he says, wrapping that slick hand around Masa's cock, and Masa has to stifle a moan. "Like this."

He lies back down, his back to Masa's chest, and guides Masa's cock between his thighs. The skin there is hot and smooth and soft; it feels wonderful. Masa's breath hitches and he holds on tight, his hand curling around Yaichi's hip as he starts to move. The friction is just enough, silky and liquid, making heat lick along his nerves.

And Yaichi is giving all that to him, making this possible for him; Masa's heart feels at once light and too full to contain everything he's feeling. He nuzzles Yaichi's nape, kisses him there—kisses his scar again, slow and tender.

"You like it," Yaichi says, his voice rough. Possibly it's a question.

"I like all of you," Masa answers. "This part just seems like it could use some extra reassurance."

"You..." Yaichi shudders, pushing back against him, and grabs his wrist. "Here. Touch me." He pulls Masa's hand down to wrap around his cock, demonstrates how he likes to be stroked. It's strange to be touching him, but it's _good_ to be touching him, to feel him push and slide and gasp, to know that the way he trembles with need is because of what Masa is doing.

Pleasure sings through Masa's body, drawing up and inward, focusing everything he is in this moment and in these sensations: the slide of skin, the soft sounds Yaichi makes, the melting perfect heat of him. The tension builds at the base of Masa's cock slowly, until all at once it's overwhelming, the way standing up suddenly demonstrates just how much sake one has had—and he's coming, shuddering against Yaichi's back, lips pressed to Yaichi's scar as he forces himself to stay silent.

"Don't stop," Yaichi says, low and hungry. "I don't need much more."

"I won't," Masa promises. "I want this, too," and he'd say more but he doesn't think Yaichi wants more words, not now, and instead he just keeps stroking, holding Yaichi close and—and taking care of him. And it's true, Yaichi doesn't need much more, doesn't take much longer before he's arching in Masa's arms and spilling over his fingers.

"There," Yaichi says. "Like that." He pulls away just enough to be able to roll onto his back, but he's still pinning Masa's arm so he can't want Masa to go anywhere. The room smells of sex now, fresher and sharper than the tobacco scent beneath it. Masa's heart is still beating hard. He rolls onto his back too, leaving his arm under Yaichi's shoulders.

He lies there staring at the ceiling for a long few minutes, rearranging words in his head and wondering if he's crossing some line, if Yaichi was just teasing him about poetry and doesn't really want anything of the sort. 

No. Yaichi is teaching him to reach for happiness, to dare to do things. He takes a deep breath. "Maple leaves burn bright—my love dances in the breeze: subtle; graceful; strong."

There's a beat of silence. Then: "You'll never get rid of a girl if you start doing that afterward," Yaichi says.

Masa smiles. That was a compliment in Yaichi terms. "I'll save it for you, then."

Yaichi rolls over, straddling Masa's hips, pinning him down with both hands on his shoulders. " _Good_." He leans down for a kiss, deep and hungry and somehow sweet for all that it's demanding. Masa wraps his arms around Yaichi's waist and kisses back, closing his eyes. 

It's good. It's right. It's true.


End file.
